On its face, Nelson's story is a sweet nod to the romance of the stage. She's a local girl, a Waterford graduate with a Harvard and Yale drama school pedigree, who spent most of the past decade getting a foothold in the New York theater world. Now after winning the role in highly competitive New York auditions, Nelson's coming home to play the beautiful older sister in the same theater where her parents, Bob and Char, met in March 1971 while enrolled in a University of Utah theater class.
The "movie-of-the-week" summary of Nelson's career doesn't waste much time detailing the years the 33-year-old has spent in New York City, working temporary jobs as a shoe model and caterer, while hustling on an endless round of theater auditions. Her résumé includes cameos on soap operas, meatier roles in up-and-coming playwrights' showcase productions, and substantial parts in such theaters as the experimental La Mama and the Berkshires' prestigious Shakespeare & Company. "The pace is relentless," Nelson says of her adopted hometown, which she loves.
But Nelson can't claim she wasn't warned. She remembers her father, Bob, who taught for 28 years at Brigham Young University before he was hired in 2005 as chairman of the U.'s theater department, alerting her to the reality of the business by quoting unemployment statistics. At any given time, says Nelson the elder, 90 percent to 95 percent of Actors' Equity Association members are not working in theater.
"I have a whole lot of respect for her as an actress," Bob Nelson says. "She's driven. She's focused. She did it all on her own."
PTC artistic director Charles Morey, who is directing the show, describes "Pride and Prejudice" as a delightful adaptation of Austen's beloved novel, which might be considered the forerunner of contemporary romantic comedies and the whole best-selling genre of chick lit. The spinster writer sold the story of the Bennet family's five marriageable daughters, which she referred to as her "own darling child," in November 1812.
Fast forward nearly two centuries to 1995, when four of Austen's novels were adapted for the large and small screen, transforming the dead white spinster into such a Hollywood darling that she was named one of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Entertainment Personalities.
"Not bad for a British broad who's been dead for 178 years," a writer deadpanned in a blurb accompanying a photo illustration depicting Austen, dressed in a ruffled cap and frilly empire-waist frock, lounging by a pool with a copy of Variety magazine and a screenplay adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
The regional production of "Pride and Prejudice" comes as PTC is experiencing its own blockbuster year, after selling a record-breaking 93 percent more season tickets than last year. That's mostly due to another love affair, that of Utah theatergoers with "Les Misérables," as Pioneer will be the first regional company to produce the show in an extended run next April and May, scheduled after the current revival finishes a Broadway run.
But those sales numbers translate to another kind of artistic excitement: full houses. In most seasons, only 40 percent to 50 percent of the 932 seats in Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre are sold when a show opens. This season, 70 percent of the house has been sold already, says Colleen Lindstrom, box-office manager.
The "Pride and Prejudice" set is designed by Bill Clarke, with costumes by resident designer Carol Wells-Day, an original score by James Prigmore, lighting by Robert Jared and choreography by Jayne Luke; the latter two worked on Pioneer's "Beauty and the Beast."
Playing Mr. Bingley, the wealthy landowner who becomes Nelson's character's love interest, is Bjorn Thorstad, who was featured in PTC's "Ten Little Indians" in 2004. Antony Hagopian plays the aristocrat Mr. Darcy, the role that rocketed Colin Firth to heartthrob status in the 1995 BBC adaptation, while Michele Vazquez plays Austen's spirited, "prejudiced" heroine, Elizabeth. Pioneer favorite Max Robinson will offer a comic turn as the beleaguered patriarch in a household of women, while Libby George plays his wife in her fifth role on the Salt Lake City stage.
In the spirit of the ingenue she plays, Nelson, the Yale-trained actor, raves about the production's design and girly period costumes. "I get these two beautiful frocks, one in white and one in pink," she says with a laugh. "I'm in heaven."
The work of getting here aside, all of this adds up to the kind of feel-good homecoming story the theater company celebrated in "Chicago," the first show of its season, when New York cabaret singer Klea Blackhurst returned home to play on the stage where she earned her university degree.
"It feels wonderful, returning to your origins," Nelson says. "In grad school, there's a lot of talk about the stage being sacred ground. l feel like there's a lot of that in my life right now."
ellenf@sltrib.com
Austen-mania
* "PRIDE AND PREJUDICE" opens Friday and plays through Nov. 18 at the Simmons Pioneer Memorial Theatre, 300 S. 1400 East, Salt Lake City. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, with 2 p.m. Saturday matinees.
* TICKETS ARE $20 to $39 (student discounts), available by calling 801-581-6961 or visiting http://www.pioneer theatre.org.
